


Letting It Out

by ljs



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: AU, Established Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-19
Updated: 2010-09-19
Packaged: 2017-10-12 00:16:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/118726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ljs/pseuds/ljs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Season Seven, AU after "Selfless."</p><p>Anya keeps the books for Rupert. She knows just how much everything costs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Letting It Out

Anya always knows as soon as Rupert comes through the door.

She keeps the books for him – not just the expenses for his trips, but how many Potentials found, how many Potentials lost. On this last trip to South America he was supposed to pick up three young Slayer-wannabes. Now he's back, and only two girls, lost-eyed and heavy-luggaged, stand at his side.

One more for the loss column, then.

When she hugs him, she can feel that loss in the tightness of his back. She can see it in his depth of his eyes when he tries to smile at her. “Hullo, darling,” he says, his voice raspy from what she knows he hasn't allowed himself to express, and he kisses her tentatively, like either she or he could break from the pressure.

“I'll take care of you, honey,” she says softly, “but you go do what you need to do first,” and she pushes him toward Buffy and Willow and Potentials and their questions.

She always makes herself a cup of coffee in the kitchen while she waits, extra sugar, extra cream. The fortification is useful.

Then, once the girls are settled and he's done his conferencing-debriefing bit, she makes her move. The first time she dragged him away like this, he balked – something about duty blah blah – but by now he comes quietly, his hand locked around hers as she leads him to their car. This is where she always feels the tremors in him first.

She knows what he needs.

The tiny apartment they share is dark when they come in. He needs the protection, she thinks, he needs not to have to _watch_ anything for just a few hours.

"Tea or food?" she says, as always, when he puts down his suitcase by the bed. Once he actually said yes, but that was several trips ago, and it wasn't bad like this one.

“No, thank you, darling.” His hand finds her face in the dark. The tremors are worse now, but in the dark he doesn't seem to mind her knowing.

“Massage? Alcohol? Bandages?”

His laugh is tired. “No.”

“All right,” she says. Her arms slide around his waist, and her mouth brushes against the pulse in his neck, then up to take his pierced earlobe between her teeth. A better tremor in him now, a better tightness in his body – not just sexual readiness but the other stuff he's kept shoved down. She whispers, just as she always does, “All right, honey. Let it go. Let it out.”

He says her name on an exhalation, and yes, there it is. Rupert is so tired, and he's so hurt, and he's so _angry_ – at the injustice of a young girl's death, at the loss on top of loss, at the need for vengeance when nothing can make it right. She's not frightened by his anger any more. She understands it.

“Let it out,” she says again.

He kisses her – not lovingly as he usually does, but rough and tired, tongue moving deep and fast. His hands are almost bruising as he lifts her up, but she knows where her legs fit around him, she knows how to hold on. His hands keep pressing on her, his mouth keeps moving, he's getting hard against her.

She can't speak, so it's a good wish thrumming in her head: _let it out, honey, let it out and then rest._

It's always a shock when he drops her on the bed, no matter how she prepares. It's always a shock when his weight takes over hers. Since that first time she knows to wear clothes she doesn't care about, in case of rips, but tonight he slips her sweater off without damaging it, and then scrapes his teeth lightly but emphatically over her nipples.

“How much do you need?” he says hoarsely. “May I?”

“Not much at all,” she says. “Go right ahead, honey.”

He laughs like she's pressed on a wound, aching and yes, still so angry, and he tears her jeans off with enough lack of care to leave red marks where fingers and open zipper scrape. She won't let him see those later.

She's ready for him when he slides in so hard that she's pushed up the bed. She grabs onto the bedframe with both hands and lets him drive, lets him thrust and twist until they're both hot-faced and sweaty and shaking in a different way.

 _Let it out let it go let it out,_ she chants in her head like she's casting a spell, and she pulls at him with everything she has, tries to pull the last of the hurt and fury right out of his body and into hers. _Let it go let it out_ \--

And he comes just as she's starting, his shudder and his anguished voice taking her the rest of the way. He stays with her until her body falls underneath his, until they both sink into duvet and pillows.

“Anya,” he says, mouth at her ear as if her name is a secret he finally can tell. The rasp, the anguish, has disappeared. Now it's just exhaustion and love.

She gently runs her hands over his broad back, testing for that pain-tightness, and she smiles when she finds only a knot or two. He's always going to have those, she thinks, but it's better now. He's better now.

He's asleep within minutes – the poor man never gets enough rest when he's travelling – and after she kisses his damp forehead, she carefully disentangles herself and slides out from under his still, relaxed body. He likes having the whole bed, anyway.

She runs a hot shower, then steps inside. This time he's marked her all up – the water and the soap sting a little when they hit her scrapes. She lets the pain go for both of them, there in the hot water and the steam, and she says the name of the girl who didn't make it.

Anya keeps the books for Rupert. She knows just how much everything costs.


End file.
